'NDA was rejected for its intellectual miscomprehension and political arrogance'

Ashutosh VarshneyObservers of democratic politics know that elections can often be more of the same. But when incumbents are systemat

Ashutosh Varshney

Observers of democratic politics know that elections can often be more of the same. But when incumbents are systematically dislodged from power, elections turn into mandates for a change in national purpose and political direction.

What exactly should the new power-wielders do depends on how they comprehend the popular desire for change. India's fledgling Government is at a point where it must develop a correct understanding of the mandate and then transform it into adequate policy inputs.

Beyond the un-appetising but inescapable dullness of everyday politics, especially that of coalition management, a moment of larger possibilities has clearly emerged.

But what is Mandate 2004 against? Of late, two arguments have acquired the status of conventional wisdom. And both seem implausible. First, the elections have been interpreted in many quarters as a vote against economic reforms.

The NDA's economic policies, they argue, enriched the cell phone-carrying middle classes at the cost of the poor, who have now spoken out with vigour and certitude.

The data collected by Delhi's Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), based on an impressive sample size of over 25,000 people, shows that while 44 per cent of the "poor" and the "very poor" felt their economic condition today was worse off than five years ago, 46 per cent said it had improved. Such a split result is hardly a thorough denunciation of economic reforms.

In Mandate 2004, we need to apply new theories of internationalism

Second, the rural uprising theory has come to exercise a substantial hold over popular imagination. A constituency-by-constituency analysis in urban-rural terms is terribly complicated and will take more time, but what we already know raises serious scepticism about this theory.

The NDA was wiped out of three large metropolitan cities - Delhi , Mumbai and Chennai-while in Kolkata, it did not have a base to begin with.

The NDA's performance in some of the most urban states, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, is also not spectacular while it has done well in some of the most rural states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Orissa. Unless an analysis later shows a systematically better NDA performance in India's small towns, which is doubtful, the rural uprising theory seems an act of analytic haste.

The best interpretation of the results lies elsewhere. Fundamentally, the rule of the BJP-led NDA was premised on two tendencies: a pursuit of power and recognition at the international level and an agenda of exclusions- economic, cultural, and social-at the domestic level. The elections do not spurn the former; they do, however, decisively reject the latter.

The CSDS statistics show that despite having the massive resources of the state for five years, the NDA failed to persuade three critical sections of the electorate - the Muslims, Dalits and the poor-to believe they had anything to offer to them.

These communities constitute a huge cross-section of votes, enough to bring down most governments. In the case of Muslims, the exclusion was part of BJP's ideology and, as the Gujarat pograms showed, it was brutally exercised.

In the case of Dalits, the exclusions were political, social and cultural though less obviously brutal. They have attacked a multi-stranded system of privilege, with which the NDA came to be identified. A kinder, gentler, inclusive India is not only a moral imperative but also a practical necessity of the new political moment.

A propitious political opportunity does not mean that the potential inherent in it will be seized. But if the new Government does not respond to the new stirrings, it will go the same way as the NDA government did: rejected and ridiculed for its intellectual miscomprehension and political arrogance.

Varshney is professor of political science at the University of Michigan, US; visiting fellow at IDS, Sussex, UK; and author of Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life.

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